Silicon Mountain Design is developing a high-speed solid-state camera capable of shooting more than 1,000 frames/sec. to capture and analyze data from weapons flight tests.
Elrey B. Jeppesen, founder of the Jeppesen Co., has won the 78th Edward Warner Award, conferred by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The award is given for contributions to the safe and orderly development of civil air transport.
Sarah H. MacLeod and Steven J. Brown have been appointed chairman and vice chairman of the FAA Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee. MacLeod is executive director of the Aeronautical Repair Station Assn., and Brown is senior vice president-government and technical affairs for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn.
A group of nations led by Germany may develop their own short-range missile derived from the Sidewinder to compete with the British Aerospace ASRAAM. The ``Iris-T'' missile would have a 90-deg. off-boresight imaging seeker and thrust vectoring control to better the performance of the Russian AA-11 missile.
TRANS WORLD AIRLINES posted third-quarter operating income of $103.3 million, indicating the carrier's financial restructuring plan is working. In the third quarter of 1994, the airline earned $34.7 million. Southwest Airlines' net income for the quarter was $67.7 million, and Northwest Airlines reported a net income of $231.1 million. USAir Group posted a net profit of $43.1 million for the quarter. Alaska Air Group earned $27.4 million, and America West's net income stood at $21.7 million.
Air Liberte, an independent carrier, is instigating a consolidation move with another French-owned airline. In the next few days, Air Liberte Chairman/CEO Lotfi Belhassine will present an unsolicited offer to acquire Air Outre Mer (AOM), currently owned by Credit Lyonnais, a troubled state-owned bank. If the consolidation is completed, the resulting carrier would become the biggest French independent carrier overnight, operating a 40-aircraft fleet comprising 19 McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30s, 17 MD-83s and four Airbus A300B/A310s.
Arnold Vandenbroucke, administrator-director of the Belgian Airports and Airways Agency, has been appointed director of the Eurocontrol Air Traffic Control Centre in Masstricht, Netherlands.
China's aviation authorities have set rules that will penalize carriers with poor safety records and business management by not allowing them to buy new aircraft. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has approved the rules in anticipation of relaxing its two-year ban on virtually all aircraft purchases. The new program is part of a ``down-to-Earth effort'' to improve civil aviation, which is regarded as one of China's ``major windows to the outside world,'' according to CAAC Vice Minister Shen Yuankang.
With no progress in sight on Capitol Hill toward a compromise military appropriations bill, the Pentagon has begun examining the advantages and drawbacks of operating without a formal budget for Fiscal 1996. The big plus from the Pentagon's point of view: avoiding some of the more onerous of $6.6 million in unrequested congressional add-ons if the appropriations stalemate is not resolved.
Europe's senior political leaders for science and technology have forged a new, long-term European Space Agency plan for the international space station that requires a $200-million ESA ``loan'' to Italy to salvage European participation. In addition, some station and Ariane 5 work that would earlier have been done in Germany and France will now instead be performed in Italy. In a separate action, ESA's highly respected science program has been slowed to cut costs.
DELTA AIR LINES WILL BE THE LAUNCH CUSTOMER for a new high-frequency air/ground data link service in the North Atlantic. ARINC's GLOBALink/HF service is scheduled to begin operation starting Nov. 1, on Boeing 767-300ER aircraft with a modified Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). The new service is designed to give full ACARS services to aircraft in remote areas where VHF communication is not available. AlliedSignal Commercial Avionics Systems of Redmond, Wash., developed the ground data link infrastructure and will operate the U.S.
Philip M. Condit (see photo), president of the Boeing Co., has been named Engineering Manager of the Year by the American Society of Engineering Management, for innovation and leadership in development of the Boeing 777.
Radarsat will provide the U.S. and Canada with unprecedented coverage of polar regions, including complete imagery of the Arctic and enough data to map the Antarctic continent.
A consortium led by GEC-Marconi is pressing ahead on a prototype helmet-mounted display system for the Eurofighter 2000, the last major component of the next-generation aircraft to be awarded. The Eurofighter prototype is based on the Crusader helmet, an earlier design also developed by GEC-Marconi, Pilkington Optronics and Gentex (AW&ST July 17, p. 58). Pilkington is responsible for optical design and visor technologies, while Gentex is developing the helmet itself. GEC-Marconi is responsible for the electronics and integration.
A NEW U.S.-HONG KONG air services agreement opens up to 14 U.S. cities as future destinations for Cathay Pacific Airways, which is currently restricted to West Coast operations and chooses to fly only to Los Angeles. New York and Chicago are among the likely destinations. East Coast services make it likely that Cathay will be among the earliest customers for the Airbus A340-8000 or Boeing 777-100X ultra-long-haul aircraft, should they be launched. Cathay already has A340s in service and will receive its first 777 next year.
Ava Robinson has been named special assistant to the director of the FAA's Aircraft Certification Service, Thomas McSweeny. She succeeds Dan Salvano, who has been named director of the service's Rotorcraft Directorate in the Southwest U.S. Robinson was manager of the Policy and Procedures Branch.
The European Astra SES satellite group and Hughes are completing solar array and antenna deployments on the advanced Astra 1E spacecraft, launched Oct. 18 on an Ariane 42L booster. Astra 1E is the first all-digital television direct broadcast satellite launched by SES, the Luxembourg-based Societe Europeene des Satellites. The spacecraft is a Hughes HS-601 vehicle that will be placed at 19.2 deg. E. Long. over Africa to provide digital direct-to-home television broadcasts to all of western and central Europe.
Regional agencies are championing technology commercialization to create high-paying jobs and fill voids left by defense and federal lab downsizing. Local and state-level operations with limited experience, expertise and resources are expected to fall victim to plummeting federal technology transfer aid budgets. A shift to funding smaller, more nimble companies is likely because they commercialize a higher percentage of high-tech products per aid dollar.
CHINESE INSTRUCTORS WILL BEGIN using Boeing's computer-based training system for 777 maintenance personnel next month at Gameco, the maintenance partnership between China Southern Airlines and Lockheed Aircraft Services Co. Since June, Boeing personnel have trained an initial batch of technicians from Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co. By next month, eight of Gameco's own instructors are expected to be ready to begin taking over. Training mechanical, electrical and avionics technicians for the 777 is Gameco's priority for the coming year.
While defense budgets have been in a steady state of decline around the globe, military spending is on the rise in a number of Asian and East European nations.
James J. Usilton (see photo) has been appointed president of Ciba Polymers North America, Brewster, N.Y. He succeeds Martin Riediker, who has been named head of Ciba's Chemicals Div., Basel, Switzerland. Usilton was vice president-plastics, elastomers and fibers.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS have developed a technique to fabricate plastic light-emitting diodes that can be manufactured in colors across the visible spectrum. The materials are mixed together with a solvent and applied as a thin film in a single step. This should be more producible and overcome previous problems where the second-layer solvent dissolved the first layer. The color of an LED's emission is controlled by the percentage of the luminescent conjugated polymer Bu-PPyV in the blend.
This is the second in a two-part series on the ability to shoot targets far off the aircraft boresight with short-range air-to-air missiles. The first part (Oct. 16, p. 36) discussed how senior military officials view the capability, as well as leading U.S., Russian, Israeli and U.K. missiles. This week's articles cover the helmet-mounted sights needed to exploit these missiles, plus French and German missile designs.
BRITISH AIRWAYS PLANS TO ADD three new routes to its network of short-haul services from Gatwick next year. On Mar. 31 the airline will introduce flights four times a day between Gatwick and Edinburgh and twice-a-day service to and from Stockholm. A thrice-daily service to Zurich is to start June 2. British Airways' transfer business at Gatwick grew by nearly 50% this summer. Transfer passengers now account for 28% of all journeys on the airline's network at Gatwick, up from 17% two years ago.
Year-end implementation of the FAA's Suspect Unapproved Parts Program will signal the agency's most aggressive effort yet to detect, track and interdict the use of illegal aircraft parts within the U.S. aviation industry. The program is based upon an interagency report compiled by a 10-person task force. It reviewed previous FAA initiatives against suspect/unapproved parts (SUP) and identified ``existing pitfalls'' within the agency's current SUP efforts.
